


blue is all i've ever really known

by coffeelouis (silverspoonharry)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV) References, M/M, NYPD AU, Police AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 20:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16126046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverspoonharry/pseuds/coffeelouis
Summary: In order to keep things "light and breezy," Louis and Harry have established a comprehensive set of rules which will ensure they don't screw up their professional working relationship with this date they're (finally) going on.1. They won't tell anyone, especially not anyone they work with, especially not Niall.2. They won't put any labels on what "this" is, at least until they figure it out.3. They're not going to have sex right away.Absolutely nothing could go wrong.[or, the BROOKLYN NINE-NINE AU that no one asked for and I wrote anyway]





	blue is all i've ever really known

**Author's Note:**

> ah fuck. so i'm finally posting this. i've legit had it in my drafts for two fucking years now as i've put off finishing it (guys i'm a really unmotivated writer, sue me.) so i'm really proud i'm actually getting it out there into the world, and i hope you are too.
> 
> NOW RENAMED! was [title of our] and now BLUE is all i've ever really known. new title from james bay's "i found you"

Louis Tomlinson looks over his shoulder to check he won’t be watched and finds exactly what he was looking for—the bullpen is full of detectives, perps, and random civilians. Perfect. Absolutely no one will notice what he’s doing on his computer. He quickly closes the case file he had open and launches Google Chrome, searching the very classy “First Date Brooklyn.” Excellent.

Or, maybe not.

“Bouche Manger.” Louis jumps when he hears his partner Niall’s thick brogue reading in an excited and insinuating tone behind him and quickly minimizes the tab. He turns quickly to find Niall watching him with a considering look. “Small plates,” he lists, tapping his chin, “casual-chic ambiance, no free soda refills,” he pauses, thinking for a moment, then gasps, “You’re going on a date.”

Across from him, Louis can sees Detective Harry Styles tense at his desk, his shoulders stiff as he continues making notes in his paperwork. Niall ignores this, but rushes over and hovers behind Harry. “Are you going on a date with Harry?” he demands.

Niall has been begging for this since Louis first started working at the precinct, almost eight years ago. He’s begged and pleaded, and one time, very early on in their time working together, even tricked them into a double date. That, of course, was back when Harry and Louis severely hated one another, and the evening had _not_ ended pleasantly. Come to think of it, it didn’t start pleasantly either, or include any enjoyable moments throughout. Nowadays, they’ve found a quiet peace with one another as antagonistic friends. Sure, they tease each other quite a lot (it is _not_ flirting thank you very much.) (Okay, maybe it is just a little.) But for the most part, they’re two cops who work together, annoy the shit out of one another, and really _really_ enjoy the time they spend together. But just as friends.

“What? No.” Louis stutters, making desperate eye contact with Harry, who just raises his eyebrows in a warning. Louis’ mouth twists, and he looks back down at his desk.

Yeah, okay, maybe not just friends.

But see, he and Harry had made careful rules this morning, after (accidentally) making out in the evidence lock-up. Number One: they would not to tell anyone (and especially no one they worked with) until they knew what exactly that this was between them. Number Two: they would not to put any labels on what they are, since they are still co-workers and that could get complicated quite quickly. Number Three: they would not have sex right away. Which admittedly Louis isn’t thrilled about, but agrees that it’s probably better overall if they follow this last one as close as the others.

But, rules aside, Harry and he are, in fact, going on a date—one which Niall has just spoiled the location to, _thank you, Niall_ —but admitting that to would break the very first rule. No, they’re keeping it light and breezy until they figure out what they are to each other. Are they lifelong soulmates? Are they two coworkers who fuck once and it’s terrible and makes working together so awkward and stiff that one of them has to request a transfer? They don’t know yet. So they’re keeping it a secret from everyone until they find the answer. But most of all Niall, who has been insufferable since he realized Louis had the teensiest _tiniest_ crush on Harry two years ago).

“Why?” He asks, trying to keep it calm and casual when he really felt like he was in the interrogation room with the whole squad watching.

“Because you guys just kissed on that mission,” Niall reasons, referencing when Harry and Louis had to pose as an engaged couple in order to interact with their suspect. Which was completely innocent, they were _undercover._ As was the second make out, later that night in the park, when they needed to throw off another suspect. Could they have found something else that would make them look innocuous enough? Probably. But Louis quick wit is not what landed him a spot on the NYPD.

Or—

Niall is staring between them,   as if they’re being deliberately dense. Which. To be fair, they are, but it’s still not fair.

“Niall, we just kissed because we were undercover. That's it,” Louis insists.

“Yeah, it didn't mean anything,” Harry agrees, shrugging his shoulders and stuttering way too much for it to be casual. He is unbelievably awkward for someone who so excels at undercover work.

Louis tries to cover it up with another lie. Lord knows he’s better at it than Harry. “Not that it's any of your business, Neil,” he glares, “But the person that I'm taking on a date is,” he stutters for a moment, realizing he’s backed himself into a corner before he spots Liam entering the bullpen with his gym bag over his shoulder, “a guy from the gym.” He winces at his hesitation, and the quite obvious lie, if Niall is observant enough to put two and two together. And truly, Niall’s never going to believe he goes to the gym regularly enough to actually meet anyone there. Harry rolls his eyes at Louis, and Louis is tempted to stick his tongue out in retaliation, but he refrains. Barely.

“What? Why is this the first time I'm hearing about him? Or that you go to the gym?” Niall gasps, playfully, and Harry smirks to himself, looking back down at his paperwork. Louis hates him. So much. (Not at all.) “Louis, avoid the weights,” Niall continues. “Nobody wants you turning into another Liam. Ugh.” He playfully shudders.

Across the bullpen, Liam looks up at the mention of his name. “Hey,” he cuts in, “People like the way that I look.”

“Sure they do, big guy,” Niall nods, still obviously dubious. “Look, I can't believe you're gonna take some fitness floozy to Bouche Manger. You should be going with _Harry_. Right, Harry?”

Harry freezes at being directly addressed. “Uhhh...Whatever, dawg. Date the flooze.”

Louis smirks, and knows it comes across as more of an endearing smile. Harry can’t lie to save his life. He cuts in, hoping to deflect Niall’s attention and save Harry from...whatever that was. “See? It's never gonna happen, Niall, okay? Because I find Harry repulsive, and he finds me extremely handsome.” Harry looks up at that, and Louis just smiles at him again. “So stop pressuring us.”

“Oh, you darling, naive boy,” Niall continues. It somehow comes off sweet, rather than condescending. “I haven't even begun to pressure you two. I've already written my best man speech for your wedding.” He turns, as if he’s about to head back towards his desk, then abruptly stops and looks back at the two of them. “Oh, and I'm gonna need you to get married on a farm. A lot of my jokes rely on that.”

Louis rolls his eyes, and as soon as Niall is back across the bullpen to his own desk, Harry kicks sharply at his calf.

“Oww,” he mutters, reaching out to rub at what is surely going to become a bruise. “What was that for?”

“You’re an idiot,” Harry answers, standing up with his paperwork and heading into the Captain’s office.

Louis, because he’s a mature, 28-year-old police officer, makes mocking kissy noises after him. Harry, rightly, ignores him.

***

Six hours later finds them sitting across from one another at Bouche Manger. And it’s….awkward. Incredibly incredibly awkward, which is not what Louis had expected in the (reasonable) number of times he’d imagined this in the past two years. At this point, the purposefully terrible date he’d taken Harry on a year and a half ago as part of their bet went better than this is, which is just...unacceptable.

Louis’ determined to fix that. “So here we are, officially on a date, a romantical date.” Nailed it.

“Yes, we are,” Harry agrees, playing with the napkin sitting in his lap. “No longer just colleagues. Dating…” He breaks off, looking around as if desperately looking for something to say. Louis’ about to cut in and try to help him out, with what he’s not exactly sure, but with _something,_ when Harry speaks again. “You got a haircut.” It takes him a few moments to realize he should follow that up with something, that a statement like that isn’t exactly good first date conversation. Louis thinks he’s adorable. “It looks nice.”

“Thanks.” He says. Fuck. What is he supposed to say now? “You also got a haircut,” he offers, before cursing himself when he realizes that Harry’s hair is well past his collarbones and probably hasn’t been cut in years. “At some point in your life,” he covers, quickly. Nailed it. Again. Louis is killing this dating thing. “I'm sure that's not your baby hair.” Okay, maybe he’s going a bit too far now. “That would be crazy.” He needs some recovery. “But, uh, yeah, you look very nice.”

“Domo arigato,” Harry responds, awkwardly.

And that’s new. Louis knew he was smart (probably a lot smarter than Louis) and dedicated and determined, but he didn’t know he spoke _Japanese_. He thought it was just that one phrase in French mostly. The one about the cinema that he pulls out on every goddamn case where they need to act worldly. “Do you speak Japanese?”

“No,” Harry admits, twisting his napkin again.

That makes sense, Louis supposes, but now he just feels awkward. “Oh.”

“Uh sorry. I think I'm feeling a little awkward.”

Alright, well at least Louis’ not alone in that. “Yeah, me too.” But what can he do to make it better? “How do we make it not weird? I know. Let's just get super drunk.”

Harry barks out a laugh, then claps his hand over his mouth to stifle it. He looks like a duck and Louis likes him so so much. Once he’s settled a bit, he nods. “Yes, great idea.”

Louis waves their waitress over and she waits patiently, probably expecting them to be classy adults ordering a nice, sensible glass of red wine on their first date. Instead… “Could you please bring us four kamikaze shots?”

Harry nods. “And four for me as well.”

“Ah, I like your style, Styles.”

Harry winks. “See, we can do this.”

Louis agrees. “We're back on track. We're keeping it light and breezy. We can do this.”

***

Next thing he knows, he’s lying next to a panting Harry, a light sheen of sweat on his skin and a dull ache in his ass.

It’s not exactly unpleasant. (Rather, it was all very _very_ pleasant. Harry really knows what he’s doing.) It’s just…. “So we broke a rule. We said we wouldn’t have sex right away.”

Harry’s silent for a disturbingly long amount of time. When Louis finally gathers the courage to look over at him, he’s just lying there with a dorky smile on his face. Loser. “Yeah.” He sighs, looks over at Louis. “I hope it wasn't a mistake.”

Louis says it so quickly, he doesn’t even realize it’s coming out of his mouth, just knows that Harry has presented him with an opportunity, and he has to take it. “‘I Hope It Wasn't a Mistake,’ title of your sex tape!” He gasps, looking down at their naked bodies—which are, technically, covered by Harry’s blankets, but still, the principle—and looks back up at Harry’s flushed face, widening his eyes at his realization, “Title of _our_ sex tape.”

Harry lets out another ugly, wheezing laugh, the fifth time he’s done so since they decided to get absolutely fucking sloshed, and it’s as lovely and embarrassing to hear this time as it was the first. Louis smiles over at him and Harry smiles back and Louis knows it’s all going to be okay. It was a little awkward, and they’d broken one of their rules, but they’re going to be okay.

They’re going to be great.

***

Niall approaches Louis’ desk immediately the next morning. “So how was the date with the floozy?” He demands, sitting himself down in the chair usually reserved for processing criminals. “We are not leaving these seats until you give me some deets.”

Louis rolls his eyes, looking over at Harry, who’s smiling, even as he keeps his eyes on his computer. “Alright, fine.” He concedes. “It started off a bit rocky, but it ended up being really fun.”

Harry still doesn’t look over, probably knowing that any look he could give Louis would give them away instantly, the boy has _no_ tact, but he does reach his foot out and wrap it around Louis’ ankle. Louis taps his toes against Harry’s ankle in response, smiling down at his paperwork (for a gruesome murder, he definitely shouldn’t be smiling around those details. But he can’t help it. Harry just makes him so giddy.)

“Did you kiss?” Niall continues, breaking into Louis’ fonding. “Did you french?”

“Niall, I'm not gonna answer that,” Louis says, his annoyance returning. “And no one over the age of twelve says ‘french.’”

Niall looks devastated. “Oh, that's a yes,” he cries, resting his elbows on Louis’ desk and letting his head fall into his hands. He looks up at Louis again, utter despair written across his face. Seriously, he looks like he’s about to start crying. “Oh, my God, you had sex.” Louis freezes.

It’s creepy that Niall can tell.

“I can tell because you're glowing,” Niall continues, and yeah, definitely creepy. “Ugh, Louis, no one wants to hear about your sex life.”

Louis balks. “You just asked me repeatedly.” Across from him, Harry giggles. Louis ignores him.

“Because I was rooting for you and Harry,” Niall says. “But now I can see you're super serious about this anonymous gym seducter. Ugh, I'm so sorry, Harry.”

Harry looks up, surprised and taken aback. “It doesn't matter to me. I'm—I would never date Louis,” He looks lost and confused and Louis just wants to wrap him in a blanket and give him a big hug. “I work with Louis.”

Zayn, from where he’s standing a few feet away, making a cup of coffee, snorts, “I'd love to see you date someone from work. Your head would explode.”

Harry glares. “Your head would explode because of how well I would handle it.”

Louis rolls his eyes. His boyfriend is adorable.

Wait. Fuck. No labels.

“Mm. Sick burn.” Zayn says, and Louis wants to bang his head against the table. This is not going well.

***

“Yeah, I'm trying to find some evidence,” Louis announces, to the literally no one watching him enter the evidence lockup, “I'm just gonna look in here.” He ducks inside, and smiles when he sees Harry waiting for him, leaning against the one desk. Fuck, he looks so sexy. “A perfect cover,” he announces. “Nailed it.”  
Harry rolls his eyes, and pulls him in closer by his belt loops. “Hi Louis,” he whispers, placing a light, feathery kiss across his lips. Louis smiles into it, but pulls away pretty quickly. They have serious business to talk about. Their coworkers have been bugging him all morning, but Louis has a plan. He’s pulled aside their new captain, Captain Simon Cowell, who only started yesterday (and ironically, arrived while Harry and Louis were first making out in the evidence lockup) and so far is a _dick_ , and encouraged him to forbid gossip, for the sake of productivity.

Even if Harry does look delectably cute with his eyes fluttering and his lips pouted, leaning back ever so slowly, like he’s still in a daze from Louis’ excellent kissing skills.

One more couldn’t hurt.

“All right,” he says, when he’s finally pulled away, “I talked to Cowell and convinced him to outlaw all personal talk at work. We're in the clear.”

“And everyone hates you for that, but this is totally working, and no one knows,” Harry says, smiling.

“I know. It's the best,” Louis agrees. It’s tense now though, tense and quiet. And Louis’ nervous, and when he’s nervous he tends to ramble, so-- “And you know what? I'm glad we broke the rule and had sex on the first date.”

Harry giggles. “Me too.” He looks down between them, and blushes, “We're, like, really good at it.”

“So good, right?”

“Stupid good.”

This is good, really good. Like, Harry had been really enthusiastic during the three rounds last night, but still. It’s nice to have a little confirmation that he had as nice a time as Louis. “It makes no sense.”

“We're still light and breezy, though.” Harry says. “Like, so chill. So if we want to break rules, we break rules. It’s chill.”

Louis couldn’t agree more. “Like, what's another rule we could break?”

“No making out at work? I mean, we’ve already kissed.”

Louis sighs dramatically. “Okay, that's very flattering, Harry, but there are some rules that I shall never--” he smiles, “Let's go,” and pulls Harry further into the evidence locker.

***

It wasn’t that fault. It wasn’t, seriously. They might have, been a factor, but they were _not_ the cause. Cowell had heart problems. He was holding on to a frankly absurd amount of stress.

Louis and Harry did not kill him.

Except they did...just the slightest bit.

“It looks like this is pretty open and shut, the guy obviously had a ton of problems,” Liam concludes, looking through the file. Louis lets out a sigh of relief. Louis and Harry did not kill Cowell, it was his stupid, weak heart, so like, obviously they’d be fine. But still. Nice to be in the clear.  “Niall? Do me a favor and pull the surveillance tapes.”

Fuck.

“Right,” Louis mutters, his pulse quickening. He turns to Harry, who has gone rigid at his side. “The surveillance tapes.”

“Yep,” Harry nods. “Because this is a police precinct,” he turns to Louis, his eyes wide and terrified.

“You two have something to tell me?” Liam asks, suspicious. Because he can tell something is up, because he’s a cop. They work with a bunch of cops, they’re all cops.

Fuck, they’ve been so stupid.

“All right, fine,” Louis admits, deciding to just bite the bullet and admit it. It’s not like it’ll be a secret for much longer. “Detective Styles and I may have been in there...snorking.”

“Yes!” Niall exclaims, punching the air with his fist. The bullpen looks slowly over at him, but he doesn’t even have the gall to look sheepish, instead he transitions to confusion. “But what about the gym floozy?” And then to understanding, “Harry was the gym floozy,” he gasps. “The gym floozy was under my nose the whole time. Oh, I am over the moon,” he announces.

“Okay,” Louis says, trying to get the heat taken off of Harry and him. Their captain is dead, they should probably be prioritizing that.

But Niall just repeats himself, “Over the moon.”

“All right,” Harry cuts in, looking over at Liam again for their next direction. Liam stands up straighter, ready to begin speaking--

“So what is this?” Zayn interrupts. “Casual? Serious? I need to know how to make fun of you.”

Liam smiles, “Yeah, you guys dating?”

That traitor.

“Yes,” Harry answers, at the same time Louis mutters, “No.”

Zayn winces, “Oh, that's not good.”

“I mean, yes.” Louis quickly amends. “I just said no because of the rules. We said we weren't gonna tell anyone.”

“It's very new,” Harry adds, “And we're still figuring it out.”

“Enough,” Liam finally interrupts. “Look, I love love, but I also love maintaining a professional work environment. As your commanding officer, I am very disappointed in both of you.”

Harry nods, looking down at the ground. Louis can only imagine how he must be feeling, after killing one superior officer and receiving disapproval from another; Harry thrives on approval.

“So, Niall,” Liam continues. “Let's go look at those surveillance tapes, yeah?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Niall agrees, much too quickly. Much, much too quickly.

***

An hour later, Harry gets up from his desk with a stack of papers and heads towards the copy room. Louis has been waiting patiently, working _very_ intently—at making it to the next level of Minecraft—waiting for this opportunity. He grabs the closest stack of papers on his desk and follows Harry.

On the walk over he realizes these have turned out to be a copy of Sports Illustrated and the receipt from his lunch, but no matter.

“Hey,” he opens, shutting the door to the copy room behind him. “So, everybody knows about us now, which means all the rules have been broken and nothing bad happened,” he tries, hoping it will quell the obvious discomfort Harry has been stewing in for the past hour.

“Nothing bad happened?” Harry challenges. “Liam yelled at us, and we killed our captain.” Louis shrugs. Cowell had seemed like a pretty bad guy to begin with, so was it _really_ a great loss to the precinct? To the NYPD even?

“Louis, is this a bad idea?” Harry continues, abruptly cutting off Louis’ train of thought and sending him into full panic mode. “It seems like the universe is sending us a lot of signs that we should hit the brakes.”

Louis heart is pounding in his chest. Harry’s implying they should end things, but they’d agreed to try it out, and it’s only been one date and one night and they haven’t even—

“Hasn't exactly been light and breezy.”

Fuck. How the heck does he toe the line between agreeing with what Harry’s implying and acting like a complete desperate idiot so Harry will _stop implying they break-up before they’ve even begun?_

“Yeah, it's been a little more stressful and death-y,” Louis chuckles. Humor should do it, humor always works in his favor.

But Harry’s not buying it, “You have to admit it hasn't started out great.”

“What do you want to do, then? Go back to being colleagues?” Louis resigns, nervous for Harry’s answer.

Harry shrugs, “Maybe that's what it needs to be right now.”

And what can Louis even say to that? It’s too early to be making big declarations. It’s just a crush, they tried it, and it didn’t work out. That’s all he really can say. So he goes with what he thinks is right, and acquieces, “Okay.”

Harry nods. Their conversation is effectively over, but he doesn’t stop staring at Louis and he makes no move to leave. “Okay.”

He waits a few more seconds for Harry to do something, but he doesn’t, so Louis ends up taking a step backwards and making his way towards the door. Which makes sense anyway, seeing as he was closer to the door, so arguably he was blocking Harry in and that’s why he wasn’t moving. “Sorry,” he says, lingering as he’s holding the door open, acknowledging to himself that he’s really just looking for one last thing to say to prolong the conversation.

It wasn’t meant to end like this. There was so much buildup. Louis’ had this crush for almost as long as he’s known Harry, and now after years or wrong timing—Louis telling Harry he has feelings for him just before going undercover for six months, Harry dating someone else, then Louis dating someone else—they’re finally both single and ready and it just feels so anticlimactic to end after one slightly awkward date, a night together, and a truly traumatic boinking in the evidence lockup.

But, Louis supposes, sometimes it is what it is.

***

Niall, however, doesn’t seem to be able to take that sentiment as well as Louis.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” he complains, stalking back and forth across Louis’ bedroom floor as Louis is laying back on his bed, staring dejectedly at the ceiling. Niall’s been here for twenty minutes already, has been panicking for eighteen—ever since Louis caught him up to speed about what Harry and him had decided this afternoon—and there has been absolutely no indication that they would actually go out and get the pizza Niall had promised when they made these plans in the first place. It’s the first time Niall has ever put off a meal, and Louis’ honestly feeling a little concerned. Or at least, he would be, if he weren’t stewing in his own misery.

“Niall, can we please just go to dinner?”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Niall repeats, and Louis’ not sure if he’s refusing, or has ignored Louis entirely. “This is not how you and Harry are supposed to end. You're supposed to grow old and die holding each other as your cruise ship slowly takes on water.”

Louis sits up and stares blankly at Niall. He’s stopped pacing, thank god, but still looks as absolutely distressed as if he were aboard the Titanic himself.

“What do you want me to say? We tried really hard.” Niall raises his eyebrows, but otherwise doesn’t respond. Louis sighs indignantly and sits forward even more, ready to make this into a full-blown argument, “What? We did—we made rules. We kept it light and breezy.”

Niall gasps. “Light and breezy?” He swats at Louis upper arm.

“Ow!” Louis whinces. Niall might be one of the smaller members on the force, but that really did hurt.

“Light and breezy is how you describe a linen pant suit,” Niall continues, “Not a relationship you care about.”

Louis glares. “We were just being cautious.”

“Cautious?” Niall swats him again.

“Ow!”

“You guys started this with one foot out the door,” he argues. “That's what doomed you, not the universe.”

Louis frowns. Maybe Niall was right, maybe there was a better way to approach a romantic endeavor than a carefully calibrated set of rules, especially one that had been built up for so long through so many years. But also, this is Harry they’re talking about, and when have they seen him without a preemptive plan for everything he’s ever done? Louis would be more concerned if he were willing to jump in, no holds barred, to some spontaneous relationship.

Though, Louis also never expected Harry would go for him, as they were so different, and he had. He really enthusiastically had—Harry seemed just as excited as Louis. Maybe he was just as nervous as Louis was, and brushed it aside too quickly? He does get way too nervous way too quickly for most things. “Actually, it makes a lot of sense,” Louis concedes.

Niall still hits him again.

“Ow, I was agreeing with you!” He complains.

“I'm sorry,” Niall says. “I'm just so excited about all this!”

Louis rolls his eyes. “All right, so what do I do? Tell me. Because we’ve already called it, and—”

“Easy,” Niall interrupts. “You march over there, you tell him how you feel, and,” he pauses, considering, “you maybe stop at the store on the way and bring him a nice roast chicken, because feeding one another is the most erotic thing you could ever possibly—”

“No, no, no chicken. Fuck, why do you always have to take everything to the extreme?” Louis complains. “That's the worst. You’re the worst.” He pauses. “But I am gonna go over there. I'm gonna tell him how I feel.”

“Yes! Go get him,” Niall cheers. Louis gathers up his coat and grabs his phone from where it was charging on the bedside table. “No!” Niall yells, making Louis yelp as he’s stuffing his wallet into his jeans. “Wait till it starts raining,” he suggests, sighing.

“What?”

“No, that's crazy,” Niall agrees. “Go now.”

Louis nods. “Okay.”

Louis pats down his pockets, makes sure he has everything, and then pulls his front door open.

Only to come face-to-face with Harry, whose hand is raised, like he was about to knock, but is now holding his fist scarily close to Louis’ face.

“Ahh,” Harry yells, quickly pulling his hand down. “Sorry! Sorry.” He looks quite embarrassed to be on Louis’ doorstep, but Louis is so _so_ glad to see him.

Louis smiles. “It's okay.”

Harry nods and swallows, like he’s psyching himself up to say something. “I was home,” he explains, “and I really wanted to talk to someone about us and Cowell and, well then I realized that the only person I want to talk about that stuff with is you,” he sighs, and scrunches up his face, squinting through his eyes. “So screw just being colleagues, and screw light and breezy, right?”

Louis nods. It feels like he’s had a knot in his stomach that has finally unraveled as he’s absolutely flooded with relief. “Definitely.” Harry smiles back at him, and they stand there grinning like loons at one another until Niall comes up in between them, and grabs them each by the cheek.

“Guys, we did it. We really did it.”

Harry’s eyes widen, the smile fades, but he doesn’t take a step back. “Oh, Niall is here.”

“Big time,” Louis nods, but even that weirdness can’t dull his excitement.

Of course, he takes that back moments later when Niall starts pulling their faces closer to one another, ostensibly to force them to kiss.

“NIall,” Louis warns.

“Sorry, sorry,” Niall apologizes, still smiling serenely. He does take his hands back, but he doesn’t back away until Harry rolls his eyes and repeats, “Niall.”

At that he finally steps back into the apartment, grabs his coat, then slips past the two of them at the door. “So I guess I’ll uh— see you at work tomorrow?” He looks like he wants to say more, but Louis just grabs Harry by the hand, pulls him more fully into the apartment and closes the door behind Niall, who salutes, and seems to do a little jump of joy as he turns to make his way town the hallway.

Louis shakes his head and he turns back to Harry, who just watches him, eyes gleaming. He tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear, suddenly nervous again.

“Soo…”

“I,” Louis says, reaching out and grabbing Harry by the waist, pulling him in and finally pressing their lips together once again, “am so happy you came.”

Harry snorts, his lips a solid half a centimeter away from Louis’. “Title of our sex tape,” he whispers, then crashes their lips together.

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed it, check out the [ fic post ](http://coffeelouis.tumblr.com/post/178556347112/title-of-our-by-coffeelouis-5k-in-order-to-keep) or follow me on [ tumblr ](http://coffeelouis.tumblr.com/) !


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